The first encounters between ... had still been relatively little contact in the west. The first prolonged visit was from the renowned English navigator James Cook, who anchored at Ship Cove ...

Series editor John Farren writes: In the late 18th century Captain James Cook led three great voyages of discovery which would push the borders of the British Empire to the ends of the earth.

But Hampton Sides' new book, “The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook,” details that Polynesian island life and cultures were not ...